Letters From Afar

SECOND Letter

The New Government and the Proletariat

The principal document I have at my disposal at today’s
date (March 8/21) is a copy of that most conservative and bourgeois English
newspaper The Times of March 16, containing a batch of reports
about the revolution in Russia. Clearly, a source more favourably
inclined–to put it mildly—towards the Guchkov and Milyukov government it
would not be easy to find.

This newspaper’s correspondent reports from St. Petersburg on
Wednesday, March 1 (14), when the first Provisional Government
still existed, i.e., the thirteen—member Duma Executive
Committee,[2] headed by Rodzyanko and including two “socialists”, as
the newspaper puts it, Kerensky and Chkheidze:

“A group of 22 elected members of the Upper House [State Council]
including M. Guchkov, M. Stakhovich, Prince Trubetskoi, and Professor
Vassiliev, Grimm, and Vernadsky, yesterday addressed a telegram to the
Tsar” imploring him in order to save the “dynasty”, etc., etc., to
convoke the Duma and to name as the head of the government some one who
enjoys the “confidence of the nation”. “What the Emperor may decide to
do on his arrival today is unknown at the hour of telegraphing,” writes
the correspondent, “but one thing is quite certain. Unless His Majesty
immediately complies with the wishes of the most moderate elements among
his loyal subjects, the influence at present exercised by the Provisional
Committee of the Imperial Duma will pass wholesale into the hands of the
socialists, who want to see a republic established, but who are unable to
institute any kind
of orderly government and would inevitably precipitate the country into
anarchy within and disaster without....”

What political sagacity and clarity this reveals. How well this
Englishman, who thinks like (if he does not guide) the Guchkovs and
Milyukovs, understands the alignment of class forces and interests! “The
most moderate elements among his loyal subjects”, i.e., the monarchist
landlords and capitalists, want to take power into their hands, fully
realising that otherwise “influence” will pass into the hands of the
“socialists”. Why the “socialists” and not somebody else? Because the
English Guchkovite is fully aware that there is no other social
force in the political arena, nor can there be. The revolution was
made by the proletariat. It displayed heroism; it shed its blood; it swept
along with it the broadest masses of the toilers and the poor; it is
demanding bread, peace and freedom; it is demanding a republic; it
sympathises with socialism. But the handful of landlords and capitalists
headed by the Guchkovs and Milyukovs want to betray the will, or strivings,
of the vast majority and conclude a deal with the tottering
monarchy, bolster it up, save it: appoint Lvov and Guchkov, Your
Majesty, and we will be with the monarchy against the people. Such is the
entire meaning, the sum and substance of the new government’s policy!

But how to justify the deception, the fooling of the people, the
violation of the will of the overwhelming majority of the population?

By slandering the people—the old but eternally new method of the
bourgeoisie. And the English Guchkovite slanders, scolds, spits and
splutters: “anarchy within and disaster without”, no “orderly
government”!!

That is not true, Mr. Guchkovite! The workers want a republic; and a
republic represents far more “orderly” government than monarchy
does. What guarantee have the people that the second Romanov will not get
himself a second Rasputin? Disaster will be brought on precisely by
continuation of the war, i.e., precisely by the new government. Only a
proletarian republic, backed by the rural workers and the poorest section
of the peasants and town dwellers, can secure peace, provide bread, order
and freedom.

All the shouts about anarchy are merely a screen to conceal the selfish
interests of the capitalists, who want to make profit out of the war, out
of war loans, who want to restore the monarchy against the people.

“... Yesterday,” continues the correspondent, “the Social-Democratic
Party issued a proclamation of a most seditious character, which was spread
broadcast throughout the city. They [i.e., the Social-Democratic Party] are
mere doctrinaires, but their power for mischief is enormous at a time like
the present. M. Kerensky and M. Chkheidze, who realise that without the
support of the officers and the more moderate elements of the people they
cannot hope to avoid anarchy, have to reckon with their less prudent
associates, and are insensibly driven to take up an attitude which
complicates the task of the Provisional Committee....”

0 great English, Guchkovite diplomat! How “imprudently” you have
blurted out the truth!

“The Social-Democratic Party” and their “less prudent associates”
with whom “Kerensky and Chkheidze have to reckon”, evidently mean the
Central or the St. Petersburg Committee of our Party, which was restored at
the January 1912
Conference,[3] those very same “Bolsheviks” at whom the bourgeoisie
always hurl the abusive term “doctrinaires”, because of their
faithfulness to the “doctrine”, i.e., the fundamentals, the principles,
teachings, aims of socialism. Obviously, the English Guchkovite
hurls the abusive terms seditious and doctrinaire at the
manifesto[4] and at the conduct of our Party in urging a fight for a
republic, peace, complete destruction of the tsarist monarchy, bread for
the people.

Bread for the people and peace—that’s sedition, but ministerial posts
for Guchkov and Milyukov—that’s “order” Old and familiar talk!

What, then, are the tactics of Kerensky and Chkheidze as characterised
by the English Guchkovite?

Vacillation: on the one hand, the Guchkovite praises them: they
“realise” (Good boys! Clever boys!) that without the “support” of the
army officers and the more moderate elements, anarchy cannot be avoided
(we, however, have always thought, in keeping with our doctrine, with our
socialist teachings, that it is the capitalists who introduce anarchy and
war into human society, that only the transfer
of all political power to the proletariat and the poorest people
can rid us of war, of anarchy and starvation!). On the other hand, they
“have to reckon with their less prudent associates”, i.e., the
Bolsheviks, the Russian Social-Democratic Labour Party, restored and united
by the Central Committee.

What is the force that compels Kerensky and Chkheidze to “reckon”
with the Bolshevik Party to which they have never belonged, which
they, or their literary representatives (Socialist-Revolutionaries, Popular
Socialists,[5] the Menshevik 0. C. supporters, and so forth), have
always abused, condemned, denounced as an insignificant underground circle,
a sect of doctrinaires, and so forth? Where and when has it ever happened
that in time of revolution, at a time of predominantly mass
action, sane-minded politicians should “reckon” with “doctrinaires”??

He is all mixed up, our poor English Guchkovite; he has failed to
produce a logical argument, has failed to tell either a whole lie or the
whole truth, he has merely given himself away.

Kerensky and Chkheidze are compelled to reckon with the
Social-Democratic Party of the Central Committee by the influence it exerts
on the proletariat, on the masses. Our Party was found to be with the
masses, with the revolutionary proletariat, in spite of the arrest
and deportation of our Duma deputies to Siberia, as far back as 1914, in
spite of the fierce persecution and arrests to which the St. Petersburg
Committee was subjected for its underground activities during the war,
against the war and against tsarism.

“Facts are stubborn things,” as the English proverb has it. Let me
remind you of it, most esteemed English Guchkovite! That our Party guided,
or at least rendered devoted assistance to, the St. Petersburg workers in
the great days of revolution is a fact the English Guchkovite
“himself” was obliged to admit. And he was equally
obliged to admit the fact that Kerensky and Chkheidze are oscillating
between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat. The Gvozdyovites, the
“defencists”, i.e., the social-chauvinists, i.e., the defenders of the
imperialist, predatory war, are now completely following the bourgeoisie;
Kerensky, by entering the ministry,
i.e., the second Provisional Government, has also completely deserted to
the bourgeoisie; Chkheidze has not; he continues to oscillate
between the Provisional Government of the bourgeoisie, the Guchkovs and
Milyukovs, and the “provisional government” of the proletariat and the
poorest masses of the people, the Soviet of Workers’ Deputies and the
Russian Social-Democratic Labour Party united by the Central Committee.

Consequently, the revolution has confirmed what we especially insisted
on when we urged the workers clearly to realise the class difference
between the principal parties and principal trends in the working—class
movement and among the petty bourgeoisie—what we wrote, for example, in
the Geneva Sotsial-Demokrat No. 47, nearly eighteen months ago, on
October 13, 1915.

“As hitherto, we consider it admissible for Social-Democrats to join a
provisional revolutionary government together with the democratic petty
bourgeoisie, but not with the revolutionary chauvinists. By revolutionary
chauvinists we mean those who want a victory over tsarism so as to achieve
victory over Germany—plunder other countries—consolidate Great-Russian
rule over the other peoples of Russia, etc. Revolutionary chauvinism is
based on the class position of the petty bourgeoisie. The latter always
vacillates between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat. At present it is
vacillating between chauvinism (which prevents it from being consistently
revolutionary, even in the meaning of a democratic revolution) and
proletarian internationalism. At the moment the Trudoviks, the
Socialist-Revolutionaries, Nasha Zarya (now Dyelo),
Chkheidze’s Duma group, the Organising Committee, Mr. Plekhanov and the
like are political spokesmen for this petty bourgeoisie in Russia. If the
revolutionary chauvinists won in Russia, we would be opposed to a defence
of their“fatherland” in the present
war. Our slogan is: against the chauvinists, even if they are revolutionary
and republican—against them and for an alliance of the
international proletariat for the socialist
revolution.”[1]

“... The Provisional Committee of the Imperial Duma,” he continues,
“appreciating the dangers ahead, have purposely refrained from carrying
out the original intention of arresting Ministers, although they could have
done so yesterday without the slightest difficulty. The door is thus left
open for negotiations, thanks to which we [“we”=British finance capital
and imperialism] may obtain all the benefits of the new regime without
passing through the dread ordeal of the Commune and the anarchy of civil
war....”

The Guchkovites were for a civil war from which they
would benefit, but they are against a civil war from which the
people, i.e., the actual majority of the working people, would benefit.

“...The relations between the Provisional Committee of the Duma, which
represents the whole nation [imagine saying this about the committee of the
landlord and capitalist Fourth Duma!], and the Council of Labour Deputies,
representing purely class interests [this is the language of a diplomat who
has heard learned words with one ear and wants to conceal the fact that the
Soviet of Workers’ Deputies represents the proletariat and the poor, i.e.,
nine-tenths of the population], but in a crisis like the present wielding
enormous power, have aroused no small misgivings among reasonable men
regarding the possibility of a conflict between them—the results of which
might be too terrible to describe.

“Happily this danger has been averted, at least for the present [note
the “at least”!], thanks to the influence of M. Kerensky, a young lawyer
of much oratorical ability, who clearly realises [unlike Chkheidze, who
also “realised”, but evidently less clearly in the opinion of the
Guchkovite?] the necessity of working with the Committee in the interests
of his Labour constituents [i.e., to catch the workers’ votes, to flirt
with them]. A satisfactory
agreement[6] was concluded today [Wednesday, March 1/14], whereby all
unnecessary friction will be avoided.”

What this agreement was, whether it was concluded with the
whole of the Soviet of Workers’ Deputies and on what terms, we do
not know. On this chief point, the English Guchkovite says nothing
at all this time. And no wonder!
It is not to the advantage of the bourgeoisie to have these terms made
clear, precise and known to all, for it would then be more difficult for it
to violate them!

The preceding lines were already written when I read two very important
communications. First, in that most conservative and bourgeois Paris
newspaper Le
Temps[7] of March 20, the text of the Soviet of Workers’ Deputies
manifesto appealing for “support” of the new
government[8]; second, excerpts from Skobelev’s speech in the State
Duma on March 1 (14), reproduced in a Zurich newspaper (Neue Zürcher
Zeitung, 1 Mit.-bl., March 21) from a Berlin newspaper (National
Zeitung[9]).

The manifesto of the Soviet of Workers’ Deputies, if the text has not
been distorted by the French imperialists, is a most remarkable
document. It shows that the St. Petersburg proletariat, at least at the
time the manifesto was issued, was under the predominating influence of
petty-bourgeois politicians. You will recall that in this category of
politicians I include, as has been already mentioned above, people of the
type of Kerensky and Chkheidze.

In the manifesto we find two political ideas, and two slogans
corresponding to them:

Firstly. The manifesto says that the government (the new one) consists
of “moderate elements”. A strange description, by no means complete, of a
purely liberal, not of a Marxist character. I too am prepared to agree that
in a certain sense—in my next letter I will show in precisely what
sense—now, with the first stage of the revolution completed, every
government must be “moderate”. But it is absolutely impermissible to
conceal from ourselves and from the people that this government wants to
continue the imperialist, war, that it is an agent of British capital, that
it wants to restore the monarchy and strengthen the rule of the landlords
and capitalists.

The manifesto declares that all democrats must “support” the new
government and that the Soviet of Workers’ Deputies requests and authorises
Kerensky to enter the Provisional Government. The
conditions—implementation of the promised reforms already during the war,
guarantees for the “free
cultural” (only??) development of the nationalities (a purely Cadet,
wretchedly liberal programme), and the establishment of a spec a committee
consisting of members of the Soviet of Workers’ Deputies and of “military
men”[10] to supervise the activities of the Provisional Government.

This Supervising Committee, which comes within the second category of
ideas and slogans, we will discuss separately further on.

The appointment of the Russian Louis Blanc, Kerensky, and the appeal to
support the new government is, one may say, a classical example of betrayal
of the cause of the revolution and the cause of the proletariat, a betrayal
which doomed a number of nineteenth-century revolutions, irrespective of
how sincere and devoted to socialism the leaders and supporters of such a
policy may have been.

The proletariat cannot and must not support a war government, a
restoration government. To fight reaction, to rebuff all possible and
probable attempts by the Romanovs and their friends to restore the monarchy
and muster a counter revolutionary army, it is necessary not to support
Guchkov and Co., but to organise, expand and strengthen a
proletarian militia, to arm the people under the leadership of the
workers. Without this principal, fundamental, radical measure, there can be
no question either of offering serious resistance to the restoration of the
monarchy and attempts to rescind or curtail the promised freedoms, or of
firmly taking the road that will give the people bread, peace and
freedom.

If it is true that Chkheidze, who, with Kerensky, was a member of the
first Provisional Government (the Duma committee of thirteen), refrained
from entering the second Provisional Government out of principled
considerations of the above-mentioned or similar character, then that does
him credit. That must be said frankly. Unfortunately, such an
interpretation is contradicted by the facts, and primarily by the speech
delivered by Skobelev, who has always gone hand in hand with Chkheidze.

Skobelev said, if the above-mentioned source is to be trusted, that
“the social [? evidently the Social-Democratic] group and the workers are
only slightly in touch (have little contact) with the aims of the
Provisional Government”,
that the workers are demanding peace, and that if the war is continued
there will be disaster in the spring anyhow, that “the workers have
concluded with society [liberal society] a temporary agreement [eine
vorläufige Waffenfreundschaft], although their political aims are as
far removed from the aims of society as heaven is from earth”, that “the
liberals must abandon the senseless [unsinnige] aims of the war”,
etc.

This speech is a sample of what we called above, in the excerpt from
Sotsial-Demokrat. “oscillation” between the bourgeoisie and the
proletariat. The liberals, while remaining liberals, cannot
“abandon” the “senseless” aims of the war, which, incidentally, are not
determined by them alone, but by Anglo-French finance capital, a
world-mighty force measured by hundreds of billions. The task is not to
“coax” the liberals, but to explain to the workers why the
liberals find themselves in a blind alley, why they are hound hand
and foot, why they conceal both the treaties tsarism concluded
with England and other countries and the deals between Russian and
Anglo-French capital, and so forth.

If Skobelev says that the workers have concluded an agreement with
liberal society, no matter of what character, and since he does not protest
against it, does not explain from the Duma rostrum how harmful it is for
the workers, he thereby approves of the agreement. And that is
exactly what he should not do.

Skobelev’s direct or indirect, clearly expressed or tacit, approval of
the agreement between the Soviet of Workers’ Deputies and the Provisional
Government is Skobelev’s swing towards the bourgeoisie. Skobelev’s
statement that the workers are demanding peace, that their aims are as far
removed from the liberals’ aims as heaven is from earth, is Skobelev’s
swing towards the proletariat.

Purely proletarian, truly revolutionary and profoundly correct in
design is the second political idea in the manifesto of the Soviet of
Workers’ Deputies that we are studying, namely, the idea of establishing a
“Supervising Committee” (I do not know whether this is what it is called
in Russian; I am translating freely from the French), of
proletarian-soldier supervision over the Provisional Government.

Now, that’s something real! it is worthy of the workers who have shed
their blood for freedom, peace, bread for the people! It is a real
step towards real guarantees against tsarism, against a
monarchy and against the monarchists Guchkov, Lvov and Co.! It is a sign
that the Russian proletariat, in spite of everything, has made progress
compared with the French proletariat in 1848, when it “authorised” Louis
Blanc! It is proof that the instinct and mind of the proletarian masses
are not satisfied with declamations, exclamations, promises of reforms and
freedoms, with the title of “minister authorised by the workers”, and
similar tinsel, but are seeking support only where it is to be
found, in the armed masses of the people organised and led by the
proletariat, the class-conscious workers.

If this “Supervising Committee” remains a purely political-type
parliamentary institution, a committee that will “put questions” to the
Provisional Government and receive answers from it, then it will remain a
plaything, will amount to nothing.

If, on the other hand, it leads, immediately and despite all obstacles,
to the formation of a workers’ militia, or workers’ home
guard, extending to the whole people, to all men and women, which
would not only replace the exterminated and dissolved police force, not
only make the latter’s restoration impossible by any
government, constitutional-monarchist or democratic-republican,
either in St. Petersburg or anywhere else in
Russia—then the advanced workers of Russia will really take the road
towards new and great victories, the road to victory over war, to the
realisation of the slogan which, as the newspapers report, adorned the
colours of the cavalry troops that demonstrated in St. Petersburg, in the
square outside the State Duma:

I will set out my ideas about this workers’ militia in my next letter.

In it I will try to show, on the one hand, that the formation of a
militia embracing the entire people and led by the workers is the correct
slogan of the day, one that corresponds to the tactical tasks of the
peculiar transitional moment through which the Russian revolution (and the
world
revolution) is passing; and, on the other hand, that to be successful, this
workers’ militia must, firstly, embrace the entire people, must be a mass
organisation to the degree of being universal, must really embrace
the entire able-bodied population of both sexes; secondly, it must
proceed to combine not only purely police, but general state functions with
military functions and with the control of social production and
distribution.

LETTERS FROM AFAR

Notes

[2]Thefirst Provisional Government, or the Provisional Committee of
the State Duma, was formed on February 27 (March 12), 1917.
On that day the Duma Council of Doyens sent a telegram to the tsar drawing
his attention to the critical situation in the capital and urging immediate
measures “to save the fatherland and the dynasty”. The tsar replied by
sending the Duma President, M. V. Rodzyanko, a decree dissolving the
Duma. By this time the insurgent people had surrounded the Duma building,
the Taurida Palace, where Duma members were meeting in private conference,
and blocked all the streets leading to it. Soldiers and armed workers were
in occupation of the building. In this situation the Duma hastened to elect
a Provisional Committee to “maintain order in Petrograd and for
communication with various institutions and individuals”.

For the January (Prague) Conference, to which Lenin refers, see Note
No. 95.

[4]This refers to the Manifesto of the Russian Social-Democratic Labour
Party to All the Citizens of Russia, issued by the Central Committee
and published as a supplement to Izvestia of February 28
(March 13), 1917 (No. 1). Lenin learned of the Manifesto from an abridged
version in the morning edition of the Frankfurter Zeitung, March 9
(22), 1917. On the following day he wired Pravda in Petrograd via
Oslo: “Have just read excerpts from the Central Committee Manifesto. Best
wishes. Long live the proletarian militia, harbinger of peace and
socialism!”

[6]Reference is to the agreement concluded on the night following March 1
(14), 1917 between the Duma Provisional Committee and the
Socialist-Revolutionary and Menshevik leaders of the Petrograd
Soviet Executive Committee.The latter voluntarily
surrendered power to the bourgeoisie and authorised the Duma Provisional
Committee to form a Provisional Government of its own choice.

[7]Le Temps—a daily paper published in Paris from 1861 to 1942.
Spoke for the ruling element and was the factual organ of the French
Foreign Ministry.

[8]The Manifesto of the Executive Committee of the Soviet of Workers’ and
Soldiers’ Deputies was published in Izvestia on March 3 (16), 1917
(No. 4),simultaneously with the announcement of the formation of a
Provisional Government under Prince Lvov. Drawn up by the
Socialist-Revolutionary and Menshevik members of the Executive Committee,
it declared that the democratic forces would support the new government
“to the extent that it carries out its undertakings and wages a determined
struggle against the old regime”.

The Manifesto did not mention the fact that the Soviet had authorised
Kerensky to join the new government, inasmuch as on March 1 (14) the
Executive Committee had decided “not to delegate democratic
representatives to the government”. Le Temps reported this in a
despatch from its correspondent. On March 2 (15) the Soviet, “defying the
protest of the minority”, approved Kerensky’s entry into the government as
Minister of Justice.

[9]Neue Zürcher Zeitung—a bourgeois newspaper, founded in Zurich
in 1780 and until 1821 published under the name Zürcher Zeitung,
now the most influential paper in Switzerland.

National-Zeitung—a capitalist newspaper published in Berlin
from 1848 to 1938; beginning with 1914 appeared under the name Acht-Uhr
Abendsblatt. National-Zeitung.

[10]The foreign press reported the appointment by the Petrograd Soviet of a
special body to keep check on the Provisional Government. On the basis of
this report, Lenin at first welcomed the organisation of this control body,
pointing out, however, that only experience would show whether it would
live up to expectations. Actually, this so-called Contact Committee,
appointed by the Executive on March 8 (21) to “influence” and “control”
the work of the Provisional Government, only helped the latter exploit the
prestige of the Soviet as a cover for its counter-revolutionary policy. The
Contact Committee consisted of M. I. Skobelev, Y. M. Steklov,
N. N. Sukhanov, V. N. Filippovsky, N. S. Chkheidze and, later,
V. M. Chernov and I. G. Tsereteli. It helped keep the masses from active
revolutionary struggle for the transfer of power to the Soviets. The
committee was dissolved in April 1917, when its functions were taken over
by the Petrograd Soviet Executive Committee Bureau.